Transparent Technology

As a secondary or lower level goal of my current independent studies I hope to also focus on creating a paperless classroom. This is particularly pertinent to my study because there are many issues that teachers typically encounter when integrating technology into their curriculum, much less technology with a gaming component. So my goal throughout my school year is to identify these road blocks I encounter and blog about how I move past them.

Which is the reason why I titled this entry Transparent Technology. I asked my 9th and 10th grade students on the second week of school to create a PowerPoint presentation of a Black Box lab they completed for Earth Science. When I asked the students how many already knew how to make a PowerPoint about 98% of the class raised their hands. So I told them I would not teach this skill to them, they already knew it. But here is what really shocked me, not only did they already know how to do this, but they knew how to login to their school server, save their work. Something I did not plan ahead or think about, I just assumed they would know how. Furthermore, they also knew how to Google for Images and some even knew how to set google for copyright settings. As I walked around the lab, I found that 90% of the questions being asked of me were related to Earth Science, and not the technology. These students were very, very tech savvy. The technology was completely transparent and was a tool for demonstrating learning of the scientific method.

This provides some very strong evidence and support for the positive integration of a game design into a classroom to allow for a paperless classroom.